Neverquest – Part 141

Characters: Michelle, Queen Isabella, Mack, Jeff, Roy, Gena, Lucilla, Cara, Siarra, Kim, Fallon
Location: Outside the royal courtroom
Time: Day 5 – Morning

“Sophia… Sophia, please. You need to calm down.”

“Calm down!? Michelle, they’re going to die in there if we don’t pull the plug!”

“We made them Monks for a reason. Bob and Guy will be able to keep each other alive until we can get that password out of Gena.”

“We don’t have time for that!”

“You’re right, Sophia. We don’t.” Michelle turned her head to the side as Queen Isabella came strolling down the hallway in her usual arrogant stride. “…If you pull the plug now, you’re going to sentence all those kids to death. I don’t know if you can see the Queen’s face now, but she’s not going to waste any time in killing Gena and any chance we have at obtaining the password. If we’re going to stop this virus, we have to act now.”

“But Bob and Guy…”

“They’d want what’s best for the kids. That’s why the adults are in the game and you kids are maintaining the controls. It’s the only way we can protect the people who matter the most.”

“What? Since when did we start deciding whose lives were more important?”

“Sophia, I put you in charge because your father has always said you have good judgment. I want to believe him. Now, right now, I need you to use that judgment to get us through this. I can’t stop you from pulling us out of the game. But remember… If you do, those kids will die. And you will have to face each of their parents, one by one, and tell them you were the one who made that call. I’m not doing that for you, Sophia. That’s a choice you’re going to have to live with.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment.

“…Michelle, you bitch,” Sophia finally whispered into the earpiece. “Why would you put me in a position like this?”

“Because both your father and I believe in you.” She smiled, even though she knew Sophia couldn’t see it. “If we didn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting there now. I know you’ll come through for us.”

Silence.

Michelle turned around. “…I’m turning off communication now, Sophia. You can still pull the plug, if your conscience lets you, but I have to try to talk some sense into Miss Uppity Queen. With a little luck, we might all put out of this alive.” She reached for her ear. “Good-bye, Sophia.”

With a click, the line was dead.

“Awww, look at all the little convicts awaiting their trial,” Isabella cooed, stroking Michelle’s cheek as she walked by. “Smell that?” She took a whiff, standing on her tiptoes so that she was eye-to-eye with Michelle, and then exhaled. “That’s the smell of a hanging in the future. And blueberry pie afterwards!”

“Pie!?” Jeff squealed.

Isabella’s eyes fell to the floor. “Yeah, for me. And I thought you already died.”

“It will take a lot more than one Woman’s foot to—”

Isabella’s glass slipper came down on his face. “Shut up.” Then she ground him into the floorboards before returning her gaze to Michelle. “Don’t feel so left out. My foot might not be able to squash you like a Man, but this hand controls the long arm of the law and it’s dangling right over you.” She smiled and patted Michelle’s cheek again.

Without blinking her eyes, Michelle reached up and seized her wrist. “Don’t make me put you over my knee, princess. I’ve spanked children bigger than you.”

Isabella was taken aback. Had she just been touched by a commoner? She looked at the fingers curled around her arm and quickly withdrew it.

“…Nothing makes me sicker than a Woman who sides with a Man,” she spat. “I’ll make sure I have a good seat to watch you hang.”

“I think we’ll leave that up to the judge to decide.”

A devilish grin touched Isabella’s eyes. She kept it there for a moment, enjoying the sight of Michelle’s deteriorating expression before her.

“Oh, dear,” she said at last. “Haven’t you heard? I am the judge.” She cupped her hands under her chin, tilted her head to the side, and squealed delightfully. “And do you know what that makes you? Huh, huh? Do you?”

Michelle glared down at her.

Leaning forward, Isabella took her by the robe and mouthed the word, ‘dead,’ before running a finger across Michelle’s throat. Then she laughed and skipped away.

“…Don’t let her get to you, Michelle,” Mack said. “Even if she is the judge, we can rely on the jury for a fair trial. That brat won’t have her way.”

“The obviously guilty peasants can enter the courtroom now!” Isabella cried from down the hall. “Your beautiful judge has arrived, and doesn’t her hair look wonderful?” She twirled around, even though she was alone in the doorway. “The answer is yes. Yes, it does.”

“…I still have a bad feeling about this,” Michelle said, stepping over Jeff’s smeared body.

Once inside the courtroom, they quickly found their seats at the foot of the judge’s podium. There were no guards and there were no people to witness the trial. In fact, even Isabella had disappeared out a door in the back, so they were alone.

“I guess we just…sit down,” Michelle said, pushing out a wooden chair for herself. “Although I don’t see any seats for you guys.”

Mack grunted. “That’s probably because she never gives Men a trial. This has to be a first for her.”

“Well, even so…” Michelle bent over and put Mack, Roy, and the frog on the table in front of her. “I’d feel better if you guys weren’t running around at my ankles.”

“So would we,” Roy grinned. “So would we.”

Suddenly, there was a commotion by the doorway as Gena was brought in with her hands tied behind her back.

“Let go of me!” she hissed, trying to fight off the three Paladins who had a hold of her. But two of them were Lucilla and Cara and they held her fast, well aware of her strength. That’s why they left her staff in the doorway.

Michelle stood up. “Gena.”

The Paladins dragged Gena right past her, but their eyes met for a moment and that was all the time it took for Michelle to see the regret Gena carried with her.

“…She’s willing,” she whispered to the Men on the table. “We can break her still. We can do this.”

Siarra and Kim entered the courtroom under their own power with their eyes cast to the floor. Fallon walked in after them, closing and locking the door behind her.

“Please, everyone,” Fallon said. “Have a seat. Her Highness will be here soon.”

“How’d it go?” Michelle asked as the girls joined her at the table.

“They interviewed us,” Siarra said, sinking into her chair. “They wanted to know why you broke us out of prison.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth.”

“And did they believe you?”

Siarra looked up. “If they did, why would we be here now?”

“Right…” Michelle held a stiff upper lip. It seemed everybody was falling apart. “Siarra, you know I didn’t mean to get you in more trouble.”

“Nah, you were just looking out for us. I know.” She shrugged and watched Fallon brush by the table. “But this would be a really good time to come up with another plan of yours.”

“Well, I had thought about using coercion to appeal to the queen’s conscience and soul... Until I realized she had neither.”

“Yeah, we’ve all come to that conclusion.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Roy said, resting his hands on Michelle’s arm. “Maybe Isabella will be a fair, impartial judge whose sole purpose in the criminal justice system is providing truth above any form of cruel and unusual punishment.”

Mack stared at him. “Uh…are you feeling okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I was just giving Isabella her cue to enter. Now, you’ll just have to pretend the sky goes black and lightning flashes everywhere, providing a cosmic irony to my previous statement.”

“…Roy, your whole train of thought is a cosmic irony.”

“Hear ye, hear ye,” Fallon called out. “All bow for the Honorable Judge and Queen Isabella.”

The initial reaction was to stand, and that’s just what Michelle, Siarra, Mack, and Roy did. Then they watched Lucilla, Cara, and Kim fall to their knees and they quickly did the same.

“What are you doing?” Kim hissed at them. “You never raise your head to her Royal Highness.”

Siarra bit down on her lip and stared straight ahead. None of this made sense. Kim had forgotten the real world, but how had she learned the customs of this new world in so little time? Was her mind converted? Would the same happen to the rest of them?

And worst of all, were they really at the mercy of this overbearing princess?

There was no lightning, nor any darkening sky, but Queen Isabella soon stepped through the door behind the podium and smiled down—all fifteen wonderful feet—at the convicts below.

“Court is now in session,” she grinned.

Like before, she was wearing a dazzling green, bare shoulder dress that would be considered one-of-a-kind…if she didn’t own two of them. And since Aisha had soaked the first in Manwater, she had to resort to her back-up wardrobe.

Even so, it didn’t seem to bother her much. The thrill of punishing people was enough to make her happy.

“You may be seated…peasants,” she said, flopping down onto a chair that was as big and extravagant as her own throne. At least a dozen laced pillows sighed under her weight and she leaned back, rubbing against the plush cushion, and slapped her feet one at a time onto the podium. Unlike most podiums, which slant towards the user, this was tilted away from Isabella so that she had a perfect view of the criminals between her toes.

“So here’s how this is going to work,” she continued. “You’re going to plead your case, I’m going to pretend to listen while secretly hating you all for having to fix my hair twice in the same day because everybody around me is incompetent, and then I’m going to sentence you to die while I eat sushi and laugh at you. Sound good?”

Roy raised his hand. “Will we be getting sushi before or after the execution?”

“…Roy,” Mack said, slowly pulling his arm down, “I think we have a better chance of survival if you shut up.”

“Really? Because I could’ve sworn that a zero percent chance is the same as no chance at all.”

Ignoring them, Isabella smiled and pounded the gavel against her palm.  “Let the trial begin.”